Page 4 of The Evening Wolves

“Fine. If you’re going to be a fool, I can’t stop you.”

“I want to hear the words.”

“I. Promise.”

The kitchen seemed hotter than it had a few minutes ago, and Emery threw the blank sheet of paper in the recycling and tossed the pen back into the junk drawer.

“I appreciate it, Em,” Nico said in a quieter voice. “Really.”

Emery made a noncommittal noise.

“What are you guys doing?” John asked, breaking the quiet that followed. “Dinner?”

The look of strain on Nico’s face almost made Emery take pity on him. When he spoke, he directed the words toward the floor. “He said it’s a surprise.”

John gave Emery a warning look, and he put his hands up in surrender.

Another silence stretched out between them. Then Nico said, with a little too much enthusiasm, “What about you, Colt? How are things with Ashley?”

Colt shrugged and turned on the light in the oven.

“Is that a good shrug or a bad shrug?”

Nico got another shrug in reply, but then Colt said, “Good, I guess.”

“It seems like they’re going really good,” John said. “They exchanged their gifts early, and Ash got Colt a necklace for Christmas.”

A smile transfigured Colt’s face, and he forgot about the oven. “It’s real gold,” he said, fishing it out from under his shirt. “And it’s exactly like the one I wanted, and he didn’t even ask me or anything.”

Nico inspected the chain, smiling. “These are really in right now. Ash did a good job.”

Colt was blushing now—and some of that, Emery had to admit, was the proximity to Nico, the undiluted attention—and he nodded. When Nico released the chain, he tucked it back under the borrowed (stolen) Blues sweatshirt that had once been John’s.

“And what did you get Ashley?”

“This stupid fishing reel. He’d been talking about it for months, and I thought that’s what he wanted.”

“He did want it,” John said. “He loved it.”

“I should have gotten him something else.”

“I caught Ashley practicing casts in the backyard,” Emery said. “In the snow. For the love of God, he didn’t even have any line on it. I’d say he was pleased with your gift.”

Colt shrugged.

“It sounds like it was a perfect gift,” Nico said. “Not everyone wants jewelry, Colt. What matters in a gift is that it shows you know that person, that you care about them.”

It took Emery a moment to realize that the strange way Colt was holding his head was an attempt to keep both of his dads out of his line of sight as he said, “But it’s not, like, romantic.”

“That’s why you’ve got Valentine’s,” Nico said, the crook of a smile forming.

“Holy shit.”

“Language,” Emery said.

But Colt was smiling to himself as he checked the cookies again.

“You two looked very cute together at GLAM the other day,” Nico added.

---